Anger, Despair, Victory
How the Building Trades Fought Back Against an Attack on Prevailing Wage in Sacramento
Photo illustration: Paolo Manuel | Wiener photo credit: Brookings Institution
The NorCal Carpenters Union, State Senator Scott Wiener (D–San Francisco), and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D–Oakland) recently attempted to push through California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) reform bills in the California Legislature that would have severely short-changed the hard-working people of the construction trades.
But the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California (SBCTC), the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, and various allies from San Diego to Washington, D.C., weren’t about to let it happen. A strong and united front pushed back hard, successfully limiting the impact of the proposed legislation.
AB 130 and SB 131
Assembly Bill 130, by Wicks, and a companion senate bill by Wiener were both signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday, June 30. Each piece of legislation makes changes to CEQA in a purported aim to streamline the development process and make it easier to build affordable housing.
But the real issue lies in what was originally proposed — and how we got here.
AB 130 initially sought to establish a significantly lower minimum prevailing wage for construction on housing projects than the existing standard. As SBCTC Chief of Staff Jeremy Smith put it, the bill’s original language would have been “the camel’s nose under the tent” for weakening prevailing wage protections across the board.
In some areas, the proposed wage could have dropped to as low as $20 per hour for skilled-and-trained workers — a rate that could have fallen even further, dollar for dollar, if the developer provided health insurance.
To put that in perspective: Fast-food workers in California earn at least $20 an hour.
IBEW Local 6 Business Manager John Doherty sees it as pure greed.
“These developers aren’t going to be happy until they’re allowed to develop property and have everybody pay for it and they just reap the profits,” Doherty said.
In Comes the Cavalry
Both AB 130 and the less egregious SB 131 were budget trailer bills — a back-door method of advancing legislation that required swift and savvy political maneuvering to counter.
The alarm was first raised late on a Friday night, when a source tipped off the trades about the bills. The weekend that followed was a flurry of organizing and mobilization.
Under the leadership of President Chris Hannan, the SBCTC sprang into action. Building trades council heads and business managers from across California quickly joined the effort. National labor leaders also stepped in, including President Sean McGarvey of North America’s Building Trades Unions and AFL–CIO President Liz Shuler, both of whom made their displeasure known directly to Newsom.
“By supporting this bill, you will be turning your back on nearly a hundred years of prevailing wage law that works in the public and private sector and that guarantees construction workers living wages, healthcare benefits, a modest pension, and dignity on the job while compensating them properly for their world-class training and skills,” Hannan said in a letter to Newsom and state legislature leadership. “It is for these reasons that we urge you to abandon any pursuit of this harmful and unprecedented proposal, which would devastate construction workers and the integrity of prevailing wage law in California.”
Carol Kim, business manager of the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council, held urgent conversations with multiple leaders, including SF Building Trades Council Secretary–Treasurer Rudy Gonzalez. She described the base residential wage language as “horrifying” and made sure Sacramento lawmakers knew exactly where her members stood.
SF Building Trades Council President and UA Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 38 Business Manager Larry Mazzola Jr. said that even the operating engineers and laborers, who sometimes side with the carpenters, joined the fight.
The outspoken Mazzola didn’t mince words in assessing the situation.
“This was one of the most important beat-backs we’ve had in a long time,” he said. “These anti-labor politicians, who pretend to be for the working person, basically tried to throw out prevailing wage for the workforce when it comes to housing, and everybody was up in arms over it.”
‘Abundance’?
Amid the debate over CEQA reform and prevailing wage standards, a new argument emerged: the idea of “abundance.” The abundance movement, popularized by neoliberal commentators such as Ezra Klein and Peter H. Diamandis, promotes the idea that decentralization, innovation, and technology are key to addressing society’s most significant challenges, including the housing crisis.
What’s often left out of that equation? Workers’ wages.
Labor leaders like Doherty pushed back on the abundance narrative, arguing that while streamlining regulation is worth discussing, it shouldn’t come at the expense of workers or community input.
“It basically just disregards any input from the community,” said Doherty. “It’s not going to be the answer. We agree that there need to be reforms, but they need to be sensible reforms that actually produce housing, as opposed to reforms that just make it more profitable for developers. We’re all for them making a return on their investment, but it shouldn’t come at the livelihood of frontline workers.”
With Friends Like These
Despite the victory in removing the prevailing wage language — and the impressive show of solidarity and mobilization from the building trades — the fact remains: They had to fight two Democratic lawmakers they’ve previously supported, Wiener and Wicks. They also again found themselves in direct conflict with fellow unionists in the carpenters.
Doherty called the ongoing battle with Wicks, Wiener, and the carpenters “tiresome.” Kim, while grateful for the swift and unified response to the bills, expressed disappointment.
“These are supposed to be our friends,” she said.
Developers complaining about labor costs is nothing new, but the recent push for legislation that benefits developers at the expense of workers has left many folks in the building trades asking: Why now — and why from supposed allies?
“It’s a sad day when so-called Democratic senators and assemblymembers are selling out workers for developers.”
Mazzola didn’t hold back.
“Nothing shocks me or surprises me anymore,” he said. “These people are in the developers’ pockets and the carpenters’ pockets.”
According to the head of San Francisco’s plumbers’ union, the carpenters appear to be positioning themselves to take over all work on affordable housing sites, similar to the in-roads they’ve established in modular construction. Lowering prevailing wage standards, he suggested, would have brought them one step closer to that goal.
“That’s what they’ve been trying to do, and these politicians are enabling them to try and get there,” Mazzola said of the carpenters. “They want to do it all. They want every hour that is attributed to affordable housing.”
“I think these politicians need to be held accountable, and people have to stop supporting them,” he said. “It’s a sad day when so-called Democratic senators and assemblymembers are selling out workers for developers.”